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Cornwall, November
I am a big fan of the online forum, Slow Travel, whose devotees are committed to touring depth rather than breadth, so it was no surprise that one of us brought up the subject of Doc Martin. We're not talking clunky shoes-- this Doc Martin (Martin Clunes) is the popular ITV British television 4 going -on-5 series featuring an annoying but highly skilled London surgeon who takes up a general practice in a very small Cornish fishing village due to his having acquired an unfortunate phobia to blood. The Doc also struggles with what appears to be an unfortunate phobia to humans.
So when the Slow Travel topic came up about staying in Port Isaac, the village stand-in for the fictitious 'PortWenn' where Doc Martin is filmed, I replied:
"...and here I was--a complete Doc M neophyte when my friend Gwynedd and I walked the SW Coastal Path from Pentire Farm to Port Quin (a three- footprint walk according to the map's scale of 1-easy to 3 -"strenuous") to Port Isaac last year. It was an absolutely gorgeous cliff-side walk around the Qellan and Varley Heads past Lobber Point, up and down seaside hills, hoisting Rosie the Lurcher over the stiles she refused to leap and finally the descent into Port Isaac. Noting a sign importantly announcing the home of Doc Martin I naively asked Gwynedd, "Who's Doc Martin?"
She was horrified--you don't KNOW? We walked down into the village, stood at the small beach where the VW gets sunk in Episode 1 (little did I know) and up and down the
High Street past the school house and the point of giggling girls (five of them in situ as we passed), looking for a: our husbands who were supposed to be rendezvousing with us and b: a pub that allowed Rosie the Lurcher. No sign of either, so we walked on to Port Gaverne where we stopped at the extremely dog -friendly Inn for a warm fire and drink with our found spouses and then on by car to dinner at the tick-tock clock-eccentric Earl of St Vincent in Egloshayle.
The view from the broad fields just up from Doc Martin's surgery out over the village is ancient and surreal at the same time. Huge cliffs mellow out into the Terrace down below before yanking themselves back to precipitous drops. Fishing boats chug out of the harbor along the coast making their own trail of whitecaps in the aqua waters.
Slow Travelers wanted to know if there are pubs in the village. There are p ubs and inns aplenty in Port Isaac (I think any village in Cornwall without a pub would have some pretty dreary days) but when we were w alking through after a long, somewhat damp walk in Full Dimpsey (the Cornish term for low cloud and fine drizzle), one was closed and two were barred to dogs. Rosie the Dog was insistent on joining us for a warm hearth and a sof t rug.
The Old School House Hotel, not surprisingly the filming site of the PortWenn school, looked pretty upscale. I peeked into the windows as the tables were being laid for dinner and given we were trudging by so many times in spouse-tracking, I became pretty familiar with their progress, getting at first a warm smile, then next circuit an amused grin, and finally waves from my new best friends doing the set up.
The village must be far more crowded when it's summer and there are more people than lobsters, but in November, we stood out as what we were--gawkingingly muddy daytrippers in search of warmth. The only conversations we had were with the innkeepers who said no dogs, the giggly girls whose comments were clear but one-sided, and with Rosie the Lurcher who said she was hungry, footsore and saw no reason why we shouldn't stop now.
The Southwest Coastal Path runs 630 miles (we have tried and tried to cover it all in shorter shifts--no lu ck yet) and some of the nicest bits are near PortIsaac. Enthusiastic walkers can hike (about 12 miles) in to Padstow if they don't mind some serious ups and downs, and take the bus back after a nice meal at a Rick Stein. Doing shorter stints the way we came, head up the hill past Doc Martin's and walk about two hilly miles to Portquin admiring the sea and the thoughtful stairs provided on the steepest hills, and then walk back unless you feel buoyed enough by view and fresh air to take the 3 -footprint challenge another few miles to Pentire Farm. It's a stunningly beautiful walk that fuels good daydreams to get you through a snowbound winter.
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